Friday, May 29, 2015

Another Episode Of 'Fire And Rims Blown'

It's been at least a year since I last shared selected crashes from my Church Bus Google Alert. Hardly a day goes by that one of these alerts doesn't land in my inbox.

Why do I do this? Because I'm tired of certainelements of the Anti-GayRight trying to convince all who would listen that I'm engaged in a dangerous lifestyle, simply for being who I am.

I'm not doing this out of a sense of schadenfreude. I genuinely feed sad for every one of these people. I'm merely trying to point out that – if one tries hard enough – all sorts of "lifestyle choices" can be associated with an element of risk.

May 29, 2015 | Fifteen members of a Rockdale County church were injured Thursday night when the van they were riding in wrecked in Stephens County in northeast Georgia. Channel 2 Action News reported that a group from Love & Hugs Christian Tabernacle in Conyers was on the way to a women’s retreat when a car hit the church van near Toccoa. Georgia State Patrol spokeswoman Tracey Watson said a Lincoln Town Car traveling southbound on Ga. 184 crossed into the northbound lane, hitting the van head-on.

February 23, 2015 | HENDERSONVILLE, NC – An associate pastor at a Hendersonville church died Monday morning after a church van rolled over him as he was checking engine fluids... Investigators believe Lineberger put the vehicle in neutral gear to check fluid levels but did not apply the emergency brake, Vesely said. The van was parked on a hill in front of the church. When the van began rolling, Lineberger attempted to stop it by getting in front of it, Vesely said.

May 24, 2015 2:28 PM EDT | CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - Eight people were taken to the hospital after a church bus collided with a car Sunday morning, according to Medic. The crash happened just after 1 p.m. on Belmont Avenue and North Myers Street in east Charlotte. The bus appeared to be from St. Paul's Baptist Church in Charlotte.

May 21, 2015 | A bus filled with preschool children careened into a guardrail after hitting a pole along the Schuylkill Expressway Thursday morning, a passenger and officials tell NBC10.

The bus, carrying 24 children and six adults from Hope Church School in the East Oak Lane section of Philadelphia, was traveling eastbound on the highway near the Girard exit when the crash happened around 10 a.m. The preschoolers were heading to the zoo for a field trip, a school official said.

May 15, 2015 6:08 PM EDT | FLORENCE, SC - At least one lane of I-95 was closed for an hour after a crash near Florence with injuries on Friday afternoon. The crash happened around 5:35 pm on I-95 between mile marker 67 and TV Road, according to the SC Highway Patrol. The incident happened in the northbound lanes and involved a church van towing a trailer that overturned on the shoulder.

May 07, 2015 | SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) -- Orange County investigators are seeking the public's help locating the driver from a deadly crash in 1992 that left seven people dead. Arrest warrants have been issued.

One of the first responders described the scene as a morgue. It was one of the deadliest car crashes in Orange County history. Officers say a Chevy truck ran a red light ... hit a church van with 18 people inside, sending many of them flying onto the road.

May 5, 2015 | NEW YORK - Three people were killed in a church van crash earlier this week. Four survived. The members of a small Seventh-Day Adventist church were leaving a church conference on the way to a retreat when their van was hit by another vehicle. Now, those who lived are looking at how—and why—they survived.

May 03 2015 | COCOA, Fla. - Investigators said seven people were taken to the hospital Saturday night after a collision at State Road 524 and Cox Road in Cocoa in which a truck pulled out in front of the bus in which they were riding. Cocoa police said the bus was carrying high school-age youths from a church group in Fort Lauderdale. The bus was carrying more than 30 passengers.

April 20, 2015 | NOBLE — A 17-year-old girl died in a collision with a church van, the Cleveland County sheriff reports. Morgan Smith, 17, of Lexington, died Sunday night near Noble. The wreck happened about 5:40 p.m. at the intersection of 72nd Street and Maguire Road.

Mar. 31, 2015 | MOORE HAVEN, Fla. (AP) — An overloaded church van ran through a stop sign, crossed all four lanes of a dark rural highway and nosedived into a canal, killing eight people and injuring 10 early Monday in southwest Florida, authorities said. The van was heading back to a church in Fort Pierce, north of West Palm Beach on the Atlantic coast, after a weekend convention in Fort Myers, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

April 2, 2015 | The chances of National Transportation Safety Board agents working a traffic accident are one-in-a-million – literally. "There are 12 million highway accidents annually," says agency spokesman Peter Knudson, "and our teams investigate about a dozen." Monday's church van crash in Glades County is that one-in-a-million case.

March 24, 2015 | South Carolina - One person is dead and six others were injured in a crash involving a church van near the intersection of S.C. 9 and Highway 747 near Loris. Highway Patrol says about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, the church van was heading east on Highway 747, when the driver ran through a stop sign at Highway 9. A pickup truck was heading north on Highway 9 and hit the van. The van flipped over.

March 23, 2015 | LIMA, Peru (AFP) — At least 37 people were killed when a bus swerved into oncoming traffic in Peru on Monday, leading to a multi-vehicle collision involving two other buses and a freezer truck, the authorities said... Forty-two passengers on the Murga bus were members of a Christian evangelical church, the World Missionary Movement, who were returning from a convention in Lima.

March 8, 2015 | MINERAL WELLS, TX – Two people died and six others were injured in a Friday evening crash between a car and a church van along State Highway 337 in Palo Pinto County. The head-on crash resulted in a fire. Seven people in were in the church van from Faith Center Assembly of God Church in Graham. They were on their way to an event in Waxahachie.

February 13, 2015 | One person was killed, and nine others were injured in a crash involving a church van in Pemiscot County Wednesday. The crash happened on Route U, approximately five miles west of Caruthersville, at about 7 p.m.

Jan. 14, 2015 | Three members of an Atlanta ministry remained in intensive care Wednesday, a day after a van carrying 19 people flipped over on Florida’s Turnpike near Fort Pierce... The members of Atlanta Restoration Ministries were on a mission trip to South Florida when the wreck happened about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to police... “It flipped, I think, two times and then it landed on the hood and it skid,” Tammy Jones told a TV news outlet.

[Finally, consider the priorities of Mississippi... While southern states try to discriminate against gays using public accommodations to protect the sensibilities of Christians, HB 132 would endanger everyone by allowing anyone to drive a full-sized, 30-passenger bus without a Commercial Drivers License – as long as it's a church bus.]

February 5, 2015 | Mississippi - House members on Thursday passed a bill exempting mid-sized church buses from the state's commercial driver's license requirements, prompting one lawmaker to call it the "Jesus Take the Wheel Act."

The bill, HB 132, would help congregations lacking a CDL-certified driver transport up to 30 passengers in a church-owned vehicle. Although applying equally to all churches, it's primarily aimed at smaller congregations with fewer members and financial resources. It now heads to the Senate for consideration.